Mistaken Identities
by HilaryHilary
Summary: At first, Jake is alarmed by his attraction to his new student, Peyton Sawyer. Dynamics change when he learns the truth about her and her past. Jeyton, one shot.


Mistaken Identities

_Author's note: This is just a one shot. I wanted to get some Jeyton out of my system before heading back to my Naley, A Winding Road. _

As soon as Jake Jagielski stepped into school on the first morning of the new term, he was summoned to the office. It didn't worry him-he had marked all his students fairly, spent his vacation fairly conservatively and achieved a fairly high grade average for his class.

He waved to the secretary, a buxom, slightly older brunette. She had been flirting with him since her arrival, but they had had yet to spark. He smiled at her as he passed, and knocked on the principal's door.

"Mr. Jagielski," said the principal, Mr. Turner.

"How was your vacation, Sir?" asked Jake, remembering guiltily all the times he'd bent the rules of the school in his student days. He tended to have this reaction to seeing him, even after almost two years of employment at Tree Hill High.

Most days, Jake couldn't believe he really taught there. It was hard to believe he'd spent four years hating the place, had left for college, and had returned to Tree Hill only to resume there.

"Excellent, Mr. Jagielski. This is Miss Sawyer." Suddenly Jake noticed a figure sitting in the chair in front of Principal Turner's desk.

As she stood, he wondered how he ever could have not noticed her.

"_That's more like it,"_ he thought, his mind flashing briefly to the brunette at the front desk.

"Peyton Sawyer," she said, standing and sticking out her hand to him.

Peyton Sawyer was tall, slender and blonde. As he caught her eye, she smiled a slow, beautiful smile. He smiled back.

"Jake Jagielski. Nice to meet you," he said sincerely.

"Nice to meet you too," she said flirtatiously. Behind them Mr. Turner frowned. This didn't surprise Jake-he always had been finicky about staff relationships.

"Miss Sawyer," he said sternly. Jake, who had been thoroughly absorbed in staring at his new colleague, noticed something immediately: Mr. Turner had used his "student" voice, and not his "teacher" voice. Jake's eyes widened in embarrassment as the principal spoke again: "Miss Sawyer will be joining your English lit class this morning, Mr. Jagielski."

"Great," he said, his voice strained.

The two left the office. Jake quickened his pace, leaving Peyton to follow him.

Peyton smirked, seeing his obvious embarrassment. As he sped up once again, she noticed his well shaped ass in his jeans.

"So. Your normally check out your students?" she asked obnoxiously.

"I wasn't checking you out," he said in annoyance, hoping she'd stop before she ended his career.

"Sure. Not exactly professional, Jake," she said, faux sternly.

"I am a professional. For God's sake, I have a kid," he said in exasperation.

"I don't see a ring," she said flirtatiously, as they neared the classroom door.

"I'm your teacher, Miss Sawyer," he said in exasperation as he opened the door and let her enter in front of him.

XxxxxxX

Peyton smiled to herself as she counted the many, many times Mr. Jagielski's eyes strayed to her when he was teaching. Many of the girls were trying to catch his eye, she noticed. For a teacher, he was quite obviously quite the catch, and only just out of university.

After the class was over, and most of them had filed out, she walked confidently to his desk.

"Hey. I'm having a little trouble keeping up, do you think we could arrange a time to meet?" she asked. He held back a groan.

"Sure. Here, tomorrow after school, bring your books. Do you have another class, Miss Sawyer?" he asked. She nodded before walking out, content with the knowledge that he was watching her go.

XxxxxxX

"Dude, what's wrong?" asked Lucas Scott, as Jake prepared to leave the building. Jake looked up at his friend, the varsity basketball coach.

"Nothing," he mumbled.

"Come on. My brother's wife is supposed to pick me up and she's late. I need entertainment," entreated Lucas. Jake smiled.

"You really need Haley? You couldn't just drive yourself?" he asked wryly.

"Brooke took the car to work. What happened? Did you get it on with the secretary?" asked Lucas. Jake scoffed.

"Definitely not going to happen. Brooke drove? Isn't she like eight months pregnant?" asked Jake.

"You try and reason with a pregnant woman, and tell me how it goes. So it's someone else," said Lucas, failing to be distracted. Jake glanced up at the ceiling before reluctantly continuing.

"Did you have the new girl in your class?" asked Lucas.

"Uh, the blonde one? With the weird name?" Jake nodded, still staring upward. "What about her?"

Lucas was silent for a moment, staring at Jake, before comprehension came.

"What? Shit, you don't mean… Dude, you're screwed. She's seventeen," said Lucas in amazement. Jake nodded, looking miserable.

"Trust me, I didn't want it to happen. And she's so obnoxious. She acts like she's all that, like we're equals," said Jake.

"You have a crush on her. She's not stupid. I can understand her sense of equity," said Lucas, scoffing.

"This ever happen to you?" asked Jake. Lucas smiled, as if lost temporarily in a memory.

"I never told you how I met my wife?" he asked, before catching sight of a pretty blonde and waving to her before running out to the car.

Jake watched him go, smiling slightly. He didn't believe him, but it was a good way to calm his nerves.

The next evening, when Peyton was scheduled to arrive in his classroom for "extra help", he was prepared.

Nevertheless, he could not help but let his gaze sweep over her when she walked in, attired in a short jean skirt.

"How can I help?" he asked, as she sat down in a desk in the front row.

"With lots of things. But I guess you're talking school?" she asked.

"Look. Miss Sawyer… Peyton, I'm your teacher," he said.

"You're like twenty-three. You look younger than me," she argued.

"But I'm seven years older than you. So let's talk Hamlet," he said reluctantly, tearing his gaze away from her brown eyes, trying to shake the connection he felt whenever they met.

Somehow, Jake managed to get through the next day. And the next, and the one after that. Somehow, he managed to avoid her gaze, to get through their extra help sessions. Somehow, he managed to ignore the rumours that she was going out with a popular guy, widely rumoured to be a dealer. Somehow, he managed to lie and tell himself that he wasn't falling in love with her.

"I still don't get this. It's hopeless," said Peyton in annoyance, some weeks after they'd started. He smiled slightly.

"Stop trying. Just let the words flow," he suggested.

"They don't flow. They're words that he just stuck together because they sound vaguely pretty. It's crazy. Music, I can do. Art, I can do. This is too much," she complained.

"You're an artist?" he asked. The music didn't surprise him. Almost every day, she wore shirts stating various indie bands.

"Yeah. I do comics," she said. Slowly, she reached into her bag and tossed him a portfolio. With shaking fingers, he began to pursue them.

"These are really good," he said honestly, amazed by the new depth into her character.

"Thanks. I publish them in this magazine," she said awkwardly.

"You were a cheerleader?" he asked, mildly revolted with himself. He was a twenty-four year old teacher, and she was a blonde cheerleader.

"Yeah. I never really got in to it, but it was there. I kind of hated it," she admitted. She got up from the desk and walked around to where he was standing. "See?"

She pointed to one, describing the daily events of a typical high school cheerleader. He smiled.

"Definitely true of most here. But my best friend's wife was one, so I shouldn't be saying so," he said. Peyton smiled.

"Would you ever date one?" she asked softly.

"I played defense in high school. I wasn't point guard," he said.

"Point Guards tend to be jerks," she said, leaning forward slightly. Hypnotized by her eyes, Jake couldn't help but lean forward and kiss her lips.

In a moment, she was underneath him on the desk. His hands quickly shed her t-shirt, and before he could fully admire her bra, she'd undone it, exposing herself fully to him.

She didn't have the body of a teenager.

She had the body of a woman.

XxxxxxX

"Wow." Jake forced himself not to stare as she put her clothing back on.

"Uh, yeah," she said, looking embarrassed.

"That shouldn't have happened," he admitted.

"But it did. Look, I'm graduating this year…"

"It doesn't matter, Peyton! You haven't yet! I'm your teacher, and I'm fairly sure I just broke a few laws! You shouldn't even be here, let alone be here half dressed!"

"So you want me to leave?" she asked provocatively. He sighed, and spoke with reluctance.

"Yes. I want you to leave."

She rolled her eyes and tossed her blonde curls before departing. Jake shook his head, thinking of how thoroughly he'd just destroyed his career, and of how little he was able to regret it.

The next morning, Jake had almost been able to clear the issue from his head. But it went completely when he arrived at school the next morning-as he arrived a police car pulled up to arrest Brock Shephard, the boy that Peyton had been rumoured to be with, the one that was known widely as a drug addict. Jake smirked, thinking of just rewards, before running to the main office.

He stopped at the secretary's desk, knowing how much she'd be willing to tell him.

"What happened?" he asked.

"The kid, Brock, is a pothead. They caught him," she explained.

"How?" he asked curiously.

"Oh, they used a narc. Principal Turner knew the whole time, but…"

Jake immediately glanced down the corridor to his office. His eyes widened in amazement as he saw Peyton looking back at him, smirking slightly.

"Thanks, Nikki," he said distractedly, ignoring her puppy-dog face to run down to the office.

His boss looked up in annoyance as Jake burst in.

"You're a narc?" he said in amazement. With some pride, she reached into her pocket to pull out a police badge. She flipped it open, revealing herself to be twenty-three and a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Yeah. He wouldn't let me tell," she said apologetically. He looked at her in amazement, and she had to repress a laugh.

"I still won't. Mr. Jagielski, you know nothing of this. And Miss Sawyer's going to be relocating back to Charlotte, so you won't be seeing her again," he said sternly.

"Actually, I got transferred here permanently. And I found a few reasons to stay," she said. He tried to smile.

"Fine. Both of you get out, I have work to do," he said.

Peyton and Jake walked out into the hall as it gradually filled with students.

"You're my age? This was legal the whole time and you didn't say anything? Do you know how much worry you've caused me in the last month?" he asked.

"I couldn't help it. It's my job," she said.

"Admit it, you enjoyed torturing me," he said accusingly. She laughed and pulled him into a spare classroom with her.

"Not as much as I enjoyed the other stuff," she smirked, pulling him down to kiss her.

For a moment he attempted to resist, to show some amount of willpower. But finally he realized what she'd known the entire time-he was powerless to resist her. As powerless as she was to resist him.

5


End file.
